Noob to painting.

[DirtRodHillJack]

I've been delayed in making progress in getting my 100 restored. I'm not looking for showroom quality or anything. But I wanted to get the rust and scratches cleaned and sealed up with some fresh primer and paint. The weather is getting cooler, and i need to get my 100 back together so I can blow snow with it this winter.

I've got the majority of sheet metal down bare via chemical stripper and wire wheel for the really stubborn paint that stripper didn't touch. As well, I wire wheeled the hell out of any rust I could get to. But there is some rust behind spot welds (like on the column / battery box) that I can't access to sand down.

First things first, is stripped & wire wheeled down to bare metal good enough, Or should I DA sand all my panels before priming? Something like 80 grit?

The spray gun I'll be using is a pretty old unit my dad has. Not sure if it's HVLP or not. But we've painted other things with it before. Usually achieves an orange peel finish. But, like I said, I'm not looking for showroom gloss.

I'm largely unaware of what good paint and primer to turn to. It would seem that Enamel paint is the way to go? Majic is tempting because it's cheap. But I want' something that's resilient against UV, chipping and oil or gas hitting it. For primer, I'm hoping to find something that is good at preventing rust. If it's got some build to it for hiding pits in the sheet metal, that's even better.

If I was sane, I'd probably pay a pro to do the painting.